When Apex Legends launched in 2019, it got here with a bunch of cool quality-of-life options that each battle royale beneath the solar began borrowing. You would be laborious pressed to discover a battle royale in 2022 with out a respawn system or contextual pinging, however Apex will quickly drop one influential piece of equipment from its loot pool: self-revive.
Self-revive is a self-explanatory potential that’s solely attainable in Apex after choosing up a Gold Knockdown Protect. The power has been round since Apex’s begin, however solely not too long ago has group sentiment trended towards it being overpowered. That is due partly to the launch of Apex’s overhauled Ranked mode in Season 13, which rejiggered the mode’s scoring metrics and made its highest ranks more durable to attain. Now that each one rating tiers need to ante up ranked factors that may solely be regained by getting kills or staying alive longer than nearly all of the server, self-revive is price its weight in gold.
The pushback on self-revive has been loud sufficient for Respawn designers to take discover. “Self-rez suggestions heard loud and clear,” tweeted (opens in new tab) Apex sport designer John Larson in June. Some gamers anticipated a nerf (opens in new tab) to the power in Season 14, however Respawn will take it a step additional by utterly eradicating self-revive and changing it with one thing else.
As a replacement, Gold Knockdown Shields will inherit the Guardian Angel perk beforehand held by the Gold Armor merchandise. Which means teammates revived with a Gold Knockdown Protect will now come again with extra well being and armor. In the meantime, Gold Armor will get a brand new perk: Deep Pockets, which lets gamers stack extra massive therapeutic gadgets of their backpacks (even two Phoenix Kits in a single slot!).
As a once-casual Apex participant, I am of two minds in regards to the change. Self-revive is a reasonably clutch perk, nevertheless it additionally takes a very long time to tug off with zero means to defend your self, so I am stunned to listen to its energy has gone rampant. By comparability, Name of Responsibility: Warzone’s model of self-revive is fast and far more annoying. However I may also admire how self-revive cheapens Apex’s fight. It may be disheartening to land an unlikely sniper shot simply to observe the downed enemy block your followup bullets with a golden defend, crawl behind a rock, and choose themselves again up. No self-revive will certainly make teamplay extra essential in solo queue matches. I do surprise if video games that adopted Apex’s lead, reminiscent of PUBG and Warzone, may also reevaluate the necessity for self-revive sooner or later.
In different Apex balancing strikes, probably the greatest weapons simply bought nerfed. The Wingman, a high-skill revolver that hits as laborious as a rifle, will now use Sniper ammo as an alternative of Heavy ammo, that means ammo is rarer and you’ll’t carry as a lot of it. I’ve seen significantly expert gamers tear aside total squads with this factor by touchdown constant headshots, so graduating it to honorary sniper rifle is smart to me.
Apex Legends Season 14 arrives on August 9 alongside a brand new hero, Vantage, and new Kings Canyon map modifications.
